The Spanish authorities are working to investigate the causes of the accident between two trains in the province of Córdoba (southern Spain) that occurred late on Sunday, which they describe as rare, with at least 40 deaths, a figure that may increase when access is made to the carriages that fell down a slope.
In addition, 152 injuries were recorded, of which 41 are admitted to different hospitals, 12 of them – including a minor and a pregnant woman – in intensive care units, making it one of the most serious injuries recorded in Europe so far this century.
The tragedy occurred when a train from the Iryo company, of Italian origin, which had left Malaga (south) bound for Madrid with 317 people on board, derailed its last three cars and invaded the adjacent track on which at that time another Renfe convoy, a Spanish company, was circulating, bound for Huelva (south), which also derailed and its first two cars were thrown and fell down an embankment of about four meters.
Read: Mexico expresses its condolences for the train accident in Spain
An accident that both the Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, and the president of Iryo, Carlos Bertomeu, described as “rare” and difficult to explain, since it occurred on a straight line, on a section that was just renovated last May. In addition, the Iryo train that caused the crash was manufactured in 2022 and had been inspected on January 15.
Given the known images of a broken section of track, Puente assured that the investigation must determine whether this breakage detected at the scene of the accident is “the cause or consequence” of the derailment.
The worst part of the crash was carried by the first two cars of the Renfe train, in which 53 people were traveling out of the total of 200 that the convoy carried. Those two units fell down an embankment.
The technical teams have been working since the early hours of this morning to lift the mass of iron that those wagons became, and check if there are more victims, something that is feared.
The technical and rescue teams are installing a large crane to lift the two cars of the damaged train, although the work will be slow because there is a lot of material to remove.
In this catastrophe there are tragedies like that of a family from a town in Huelva, with four members dead, the parents, a son and a nephew, while the little daughter, aged six, survived.
Investigate to know the truth
“We are going to find the truth, we are going to know the answer,” said this Monday the head of the Spanish Executive, Pedro Sánchez, after visiting the site of the accident, and promised citizens to report “with absolute transparency and absolute clarity” about the reasons that caused the derailment and collision of two trains.
“We all wonder what happened, how it happened, how this tragedy was able to occur; and the time and work of the technicians, I am convinced, will give us the answer,” Sánchez insisted.
The investigation corresponds to the Railway Accident Investigation Commission (CIAF), an independent body that has already opened the file, in which it details that 39 people have died and that there are 152 injured, 123 of them minor and 29 serious.
A CIAF investigative team has been at the scene of the accident since the night of the event, and according to its first investigations, the last two cars of the Iryo train derailed at the entrance to the Adamuz station and invaded the parallel track, which caused the collision with the Renfe Alvia train, which was traveling in the opposite direction.
The president of this organization, Iñaki Barrón, pointed to “the interaction between the track and the train” as a possible cause of the derailment.
“It does not seem that (the derailment) is a human problem, nor of signaling, nor of electrification… If what caused everything was the derailment of a train, what intervenes in a derailment is always the interaction between the track and the vehicle,” he explained on Spanish public television.
The president of Renfe, Álvaro Fernández Heredia stated that “it was not a problem of excess speed and it was a straight line, not a curve. Drawing conclusions is not going to be something immediate.” For this reason, he pointed to a possible problem on the tracks or in the trains and moved away from the option of human error.
International solidarity
Leaders from around the world expressed their condolences and solidarity to Spain this Monday, from the French president, Emmanuel Macron, the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, or Pope Leo XIV.
The heads of the European Union (EU) institutions also expressed their condolences to the victims and families for the train accident and stated that the European emergency center is “ready to provide support” to Spain “if requested.”
As a result of the accident, the high-speed rail service between Madrid and Andalusia, the most populated region of Spain, with cities such as Seville and Malaga, is suspended. The government hopes that this rail connection will be restored “around February 2.”
For this reason, both Renfe and the airlines Iberia and Air Europa and bus companies have reinforced their services between the south and the center of the peninsula.
With information from EFE
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